A binder-diluent product for direct compression tableting must be free-flowing, compressible and palatable. Advantageous in tableting are water soluble sugar products. Sweet sugars as binder-diluents are preferable in chewable tablets, but crystalline or pulverized sugars are unsuitable for direct compression. Only special agglomerated or granulated sugar products can be used. Suitable binder-diluents for chewable tablets are, for example, spray-dried lactose, "Emdex", which is an agglomerated dextrose, "DiPac", which is an agglomerated sucrose with dextrins, mannitol, and direct compression starches.
Fructose has several advantages as binder-diluent in palatable tablets. The taste is sweet, the sugar is less cariogenic than sucrose, it is suitable for diabetics and the water solubility of fructose is good. Fructose is, however, not directly compressible. Agglomeration of fructose also presents problems. Fructose granules agglomerated from a water solution are hard and the compressibility is unsatisfactory. A granular fructose product has been prepared from a fructose-alcohol mixture; for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,684,573. The use of alcohols in tableting, however, calls for special precautions in industrial applications. It is therefore a great advantage if a compressible product can be prepared using only water as solvent. Such a product can be prepared by adding a comparatively large amount of dextrins to a fructose solution and spray-drying the mixture; see European patent application bearing publication No. 0036738, filed 3/16/81. This method does not provide a product that is predominantly fructose, but rather a sugar mixture including fructose as one of several carbohydrates.